Those posts upset some of our readers. As a Curmudgeon, however, we call ‘em like we see ‘em. To us, it illustrates the unspoken unity that exists across all political boundaries to motivate creationists — blind hatred of reason and all its works. Creationism is the elusive missing link that clearly illustrates the common ancestry of both William Jennings Bryan and Vladimir Lenin — and that common ancestor is anti-Enlightenment insanity.

Today we present to you, dear reader, some excerpts from an article that appears at the website of RIA Novosti, which is one of the largest Russian news agencies. It’s state-owned and traces it’s history back to the Soviet Information Bureau, created in 1941 under the USSR Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Committee. In that venerable news organ we read Russian Deputy Calls for Creationism to be Taught in School. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us:

A Russian lawmaker has proposed introducing alternative theories of human evolution to Darwinism, including creationist ideas, into the obligatory school syllabus.

How thrilling for American creationists to see that the Russians agree with them. The news story continues:

Several Russian papers reported recently that United Russia parliamentarians have proposed changing the secondary school history program to include not only Darwin’s theory of evolution but also faith-based alternatives.

Just like in Louisiana and Tennessee! There must be wild rejoicing in Seattle. Let’s read on:

“I was answering the question whether I agree that Darwin’s theory prevails in school books as the only true one. I said probably it is incorrect, considering Darwin’s theory raises serious questions and is widely criticized,” [State Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Lysakov] said, adding it would be right to set out several theories of human evolution including one based on religion.

Yes — teach the controversy! We continue:

“Moreover we have a lot of believers and having only one theory is incorrect,” he [Lysakov] said, adding “of course, we are not preparing any law on this.”

At least not yet. There doesn’t seem to be any need for it. Get this:

Schoolchildren are already taught that Darwin’s theory is not the only theory of human origins, State Duma Education Committee member and former head of Federal Education Agency Grigory Balykhin said.

Egad — the Russians are pulling way ahead of us in creation science! Wake up, America!

So … more than one theory, eh? Let’s dust off Lysenkoism for them and let them try that on for size. Let’s see which competing theories have more in common; Evolution and ID, Evolution and Lysenkoism, or ID and Lysenkoism?.

Let’s see which theories actually get used, and lead to useful results. Oh wait … we already did that.

Curious, that in a state not
known for democratic ideals and values,
creationism is still there( I was talking about Russia, ha ha)..
I’d love to see a poll of Russians regarding
support for creationism and how they view science.
In science, the Russians had a thriving presence
throughout the 20th century.
The country was secular (on the surface anyway), for a long time.
So, portions of the good ole USA, are waaaaaaayy ahead of the
Russians on lawmaker attempts to institute creationism.
Gooooooooooooo Tennessee ! Yay :).

Will says: “In science, the Russians had a thriving presence throughout the 20th century.”

Depends on what you include in the label “science”.

From the late 1920’s thru the mid 1960’s Trofin Lysenko, was a hopelessly non Darwinian biologist who eventually became Stalin’s chosen head for the Soviet Institute of Genetics. His Lamarckian view of genetics held back Soviet agricultural science for decades, even while actual Soviet biological scientists were imprisoned and starved to death.

Similarly contradicting the idea that Soviet science was comparable to Western science, it was only a few years after Lysenko was removed that Western geologists had firmly pieced together the Theory of Plate Tectonics, which explained the rise and fall of continents by horizontal motions of the plates. But the Soviet geologists ignored plate tectonics and continued to hold to several models based only on vertical motion. Even in the late 1980’s I knew a young Russian student who had come from the FSU to pursue a PhD in geology in the US. His prior training in the FSU was based on pre-tectonic geological models.

I think even to this day you will find that the WND still madly supports the hypothesis that petroleum resources are of abiotic origin from deep within the earth, rather than fossilized carbon from former shallow seas which is easily explained by plate tectonics. The evils of teaching creationism to future scientists are many.

Ceterus, Nice post. And a great lesson, thanks. Yes I have noticed the Russians in the geologic fields favor non biologic hydrocarbon origins.
The link to creationism yoiu make is enlightening for me(not much isn’t it seems). I shall take a look at those assumptions regarding Soviet science.

This may be a coincidence (yeah right) but I find that if I listen only to those scientists whose conclusions are not suspiciously biased towards what they want to be true, per their political/religious ideology, and often biased against it, they always turn out to be right.

Case in point, evolutionary biologists, many of whom would prefer that biological history were more consistent with one of the mutually-contradictory literal interpretations of Genesis, and all of whom would love to be the one to finally “dethrone Darwin.”

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